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Lehi •A technology company has successfully petitioned the Lehi City Council to change the name of Morning Glory Road, after arguing the term "morning glory" — which is slang for a male erection — could be bad for business.
Xactware Solutions Inc., which is expanding its business from Orem to Traverse Mountain in Lehi, made a request to change the name of the road to Morning Vista Road last month.
Jonathan Gardner, Traverse Mountain Commercial Venture project director, said the company's executive team from back east and Europe were looking at the plans for the new headquarters in Lehi and saw a red flag with the road name.
While morning glory is the name for a noxious weed in Utah and is part of the title of a popular mid-1990s album by the British rock group Oasis, a company representative told city officials Dec. 11 that the sexual definition of the word could become too prominent in the minds of consumers who see Xactware's Morning Glory Road address.
"We never knew about the ulterior definitions until that came to light a little while ago," Gardner said.
Other roads on Traverse Mountain reference names having to do with the sun, nature, or plants. City documents show the name change was requested by the company to "fit with their international corporate image."
Lehi City Planner Christie Hutchings said name changes to city streets don't happen often. There are no homes or businesses currently on the road, so all that will have to be changed is about five street signs the developer will pay for.
Lehi resident Emily Scanlon, who lives near what was to be the former Morning Glory Road, thinks Xactware may have gone "a little overboard" with its street name concerns.
"I've lived here for four years and not once have I ever thought of morning glory as that [a male erection]," she said.
Before, none of the residents in the area even thought of the word's other definition, but since its public name change, Scanlon said the neighborhood has been introduced to a new vocabulary.
"Now we think of it that way," Scanlon said.
City Councilman Johnny Revill said Thursday he was unaware of the slang term, but didn't have an issue approving the change once he learned its meaning.
"That name has a negative meaning for some reason," Revill said. "When you use the word there is a different meaning that can be taken from that."
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